In Defense of Abolition

I came across a substack post by a prominent activist that made some observations about the state of abolition in the US and some of its flag-bearers. As I began reading, I couldn't help but come away from the post feeling as if the author had an axe to grind with abolition (or individuals who express that they are abolitionists) more-so than merely offering a timely critique. What could have prompted this, I wondered to myself.

Further down the page things became clearer to me. Roughly two weeks ago the Guardian published an open letter addressing political prisoners in Iran. What better way to respond than casting the whole lot of abolitionists - whether signatories or not - as misguided liberals. I'm going to break down some of my chief disagreements with the post, which I regard as more of an airing of personal grievances than prescient analysis of abolition in of itself.

First the author states that "they have no doubt that there are some people unjustly imprisoned and abused in every country in the world." I couldn't think of a more apt starting point for which to defend the prison. After all, you do have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Other countries, the author opines, have different ways of going about making this omelette than the US, meaning that their systems of incarceration "don't carry the same class or racial character of the US" (aside from this being untrue in the vast majority of cases) and for this reason don't merit abolishment in the same way that prisons and policing in the US do.

From the jump, the author's statements reveal a worldview in which the misery and suffering of some are a tradeoff they are willing to make if it means keeping the prison. This worldview betrays an ignorance of history and the hubris to believe that if managed correctly, policing and prisons can be a benefit to society. Absent from the post are any examples of them working this way in any place at any moment in time. Surely if this was the case one would be able to show their work?

The author further states that abolition "has become taken to mean nothing less than the immediate abolition of all prisons/policing everywhere, and that any revolutionary or liberatory movement would never deploy “carceral” means or coercive force, even against its oppressors." According to who? Abolition has many followers and many flavors, and I'm sure that pacifism is among them. That doesn't make it the official position of abolitionists everywhere, and I'm not sure I would trust an interlocutor driven by animus against abolitionists to accurately ascribe its principles. I as an abolitionist don't condemn the oppressed for struggles against an imperial bully, but no one asked me.

It doesn't take but a few paragraphs to discover that the author holds the same view as any other proponent of police and prisons throughout history:

"We are going to put the people that deserve it in jail." Is the same logic used by every carceralist that has existed or ever will exist. There's nothing revolutionary or anti-imperialist about such a view. If you want prisons in your society just fucking say it with your whole chest. Not everything needs to be wrapped in ideology. You don't have call people who disagree with you liberals. You don't have to make allusions to jailing imperialist spies. You think police and prisons can be used for good. I would suggest that you're naive, but you're free to think what you want. I just happen believe that prisons and police will eventually be turned on the most vulnerable members of society because that's how they have been utilized in almost any situation that one can conceive.

The author goes on to cleverly state that "[s]lavery, fascism, and colonialism have never been defeated by holding hands and singing songs with the enslavers, fascists, and colonizers or organizing transformative/restorative justice circles with them." I guess I missed that class in abolition 101. No one making such mischaracterizations deserves to be taken seriously, but in the spirit of good faith I'll continue.

The author continues reasoning that making the request of Iran to free political prisoners is to demand Iran prove something to "internet anarchists" (note: abolition came into being at approximately the same time as the combustion engine). Unlike substack authors, some abolitionists are capable of holding two things in their minds at once: that imperial aggression is bad, and that countries that are subject to it can also do harm to its own populace through policing and prisons. Black and white thinking on such an issue leads to campism, negates the experience of political prisoners themselves, and is far more "US-centric" in its thinking than the author projects upon abolition.

Essentially, to the author, subjects of imperial aggression are capable of doing no wrong, and even noticing any is an act of injustice worthy of being tut-tutted as a foolish liberal doing the bidding for our imperial masters. To the extent that contradictions arise, as they tend to do, they should be ignored. That's one helluva omelette.

I will end on a positive tone and say that I don't think that everything the author says is off base. I too have issues with how some abolitionists have comported themselves publicly (the Angela Davis Cop City debacle comes to mind). I also believe that it has been somewhat co-opted by the non-profit industrial complex, which has lead to a sanitized version trickling out to the masses. Those are real points worth making and critiquing. You can do so without falsely ascribing to abolition positions that make it easier to take it down a peg.